Colonial America: The Springboard
to American Sports
b y Janice Johnson
General Burgoyne arrived in Boston tinual threat of starvation and disease.
in the spring of 1755 after the Battle of In 1620 and 1630, with the arrival of
Lexington complete with fighting gear the Puritans and Separatists, this need
and fishing tackle. He had read many to work and to struggle was enforced
accounts written by previous British by their historically based hatred for
travellers describing the great variety recreation. These were middle class
of game in American Rivers. Now that reform groups whose only chance for
he was finally here, he could hardly be bettering their position in life in the
expected to pass up this wonderful face of the wealthy Anglican Church
sporting opportunity for the sake of a had been to work extremely hard.
mere battle. Four months before sur- They resented strongly the amuserendering, Burgoyne and his officers ments of the wealthy and leisurely
camped near the outlet of the Bouquet classes and eventually made a moral
River into Lake Champlain. One of the issue out of their discontent. Their only
officers wrote, "Two miles up this river way of "getting ahead" was through
there is a sawmill, and fall of water, continual hard work and, in order to
where there is most excellent trout justify their sacrifices, they confishing."' Even as his army was demned ~ l a vas immoral. Thus, almarching from Canada on its way to though the -initial devotion to work
defeat at Saratoga, Burgoyne's men stemmed from necessity, with the adkept busy reporting good fishing spots vent of the Puritans and the Separaalong the way. If the other officers and tists it became also a question of
soldiers were as interested in fishing morality.
Laws passed during these times reand other sports as Burgoyne and his
men, maybe we should thank our flect the early need to ban play as a
abundant forests and streams for our matter of survival and the later religiously based moral aversion. Sir
independence.
General Burgoyne's interest in fish- Thomas Dale forbade further bowling
ing while in the process of leading an at Jamestown and decreed that any
army and attempting to win a war tradesman unfaithful and negligent in
shows that such recreational needs daily attendance upon his occupation
are an integral part of human nature. should "be condemned to the Galley
The Puritans and the Separatists, who for three year^."^ Governor Endicott,
were responsible for leading some of of Massachusetts Bay Colony, cut
the first colonial settlers, stressed the down the May-Pole at Merry Mount
necessity of work and attempted to gravely warning the offenders "to
squelch all human desire for recrea- looke ther should be better walking."
tional pastimes. The basic need for He prepared to enforce the General
such diversion could never be wholly Court's law that "no person, housesuppressed however and it was soon holder or other shall spend his time id- ly-or--unprofitably as under paine of- -** expressed simply "as_aA
by~product~of
the work so ardently emphasized by such punishment as the Courte shall
thinke meet to i n f l i ~ t . "These
~
laws
these pious groups.
were
constantly
being
decreed
Actually, the first settlers had very
little time or opportunity to play. however for none was such a dire
Theirs' was a constant battle for life threat that activity did not spring up in
amidst attacking Indians and the con- some way.
a
6
The first recorded ball game in Colonial America is said to have taken
place on Christmas day in 1621.4
Governor Bradford, upon leaving
work, discovered some newcomers
who had been given a day off because
of the Holiday, playing stoole-ball.
(This was a forerunner of Cricket-an
upturned three-legged stool serving as
the wicket.) Bradford promptly sent
the players back to work. Twenty-six
years later, in 1657, a Boston Law continued the attempt to thwart ball
games.
Foreasmuch as sundry complaints
are made that several persons have
received hurt by boys and young men
playing at football in the streets, these
therefore are to enjoin that none of
the streets, lanes or enclosures of this
town, under the penalties of twenty
shillinas for everv such offense.=
-
Many other examples of such laws exist, but none of them ever proved completely successful-if they were successful at all.
In New England, the stern rule of
Calvanism continued to condemn idleness and amusements for their own
sake long after the reins of necessity
had loosened their grip on the group.
The Southern planters, on the other
hand, attempted to model their lives
after the English aristocracy as they
became a more leisurely class of people. Thus, the 1619 Virginia decree
stating that any person found idle
should be bound to compulsive work,
prohibiting gaming at dice or cards,
regulating drinking, providing
"penalties for excessive apparel, and
rigidly enforcing Sabbath observance
quickly lost favor for the excitements
of horse-racing, hunting, cockfighting,
boat-racing, nine pins, dice and
card^.^
The Puritans failed to eradicate the
natural urge for play, although they did
stifle open recognition of it. To a great
degree, the colonists avoided the
taboos by associating recreation with
industry. Hunting, fishing, barnraisings, log rollings, plowing bees and
corn huskings all contained the seeds
of cooperation and competition.
Special days set aside for specific
purposes soon became an outlet for
such competition. Training days and
Muster days were two of those kinds
of days which were approved by the
New England magistrates. On Training
days, all able-bodied men were
brought together to train for the militia.
After the drilling was over, a feast was
served and afterwards the men participated in various competitions.
These included wrestling, fighting, running, jumping and target practice.
Muster days were days of celebration
where men who had broken the law
were punished. Here men practiced
their throwing skill by heaving clods of
mud or eggs at the men placed in the
stocks or pillory. Court and Commencement days were also occasions
for participation in games and contests. Again the recreational purposes
were camouflaged by the more
serious purposes of business and
education.
In the country, too, people managed
to indulge in recreation through activities of a more functional nature. Barnraisings and corn huskings allowed
people to get together to help each
other out with necessary work, but
provided them also with an opportunity
to gather socially without feeling guilty. After the work was done, games
and contests were held. At the corn
huskings in some areas, the boys who
had discovered ears of red corn were
permitted to kiss the girls, each selecting the one he liked best. The colonists
were able to justify their pleasure
found in these functions because
something useful was being accomplished in the process.
The tavern during this Colonial period became a kind of social center, primarily for drinking, but also for billiards, backgammon, dicing, and nine-
pins. "In most country towns," wrote
John Adams of New England in 1761,
". . . you will find almost every other
house with a sign of entertainment before it . .
These taverns became the
places around which early Colonial
sports flourished.
Tavern sports included animal baiting, cock-fighting, free for-all fights,
and shooting matches. Cock-fighting,
introduced from England as early as
1650, was more popular in the South
than in New England.8 It was most
popular from Maryland to New
Orleans, and matches were held regularly each attracting all classes of
people. Elkannan Watson, a New
England merchant, described one
cock-fight as follows:
Exceedingly beautiful cocks were produced, armed with long, steel pointed
gaffes which were attached to their
natural spurs. The moment birds were
dropped bets ran high. The little
heroes appeared trained to the business . . . They flew upon each other
with a rude shock, the cruel gaffes being driven into their bodies and at
times directly through their heads.
Frequently one, or both, would be
struck dead at the first blow. I soon
sickened at this barbarous sport.=
Gander pulling, another tavern
sport, was seen most frequently in the
New Netherlands. In this sport, a rope
was stretched across the road from
which a goose with a well greased
head was suspended. The young men
mounted on horses and rode toward
the goose attempting to pull it down
when they passed. At times, the rope
was stretched over water and the
competitors rowed by the goose in
boats trying to pull it down in this manner. An unsuccessful attempt could
mean a cold dunking for the failing
competitor.
Animal baiting, a third tavern sport,
flourished until roughly 1830.1° In this
sport, the animal, usually a bull or a
bear, was fastened to a ring fixed in
the ground. Six to eight dogs were
then let loose in the pen-the battle
ending when all the dogs were killed or
the chained animals was killed.
Several hundred spectators were
often present at one of these spectacles.
Wrestling matches and fights held
outside of taverns, often ended in
gouging matches. Gouging was
brought here from England and was
first popular in the South. Travelling
westward to the Ohio Valley, the sport
reached its pinacle in 1880.11 In gouging matches anything from kicking to
biting was allowed. The gouging itself
was performed by grabbing the hair of
one's opponent near the temple and
scooping the eye out of the socket
with the thumb nail. Gougers let their
thumb nails grow very long for this express purpose.
Shooting matches also became a
prevalent pasttime. Many of these
matches were held on Saturdays and
Holidays around the taverns. They proved more than profitable for the tavern
owner, as much drinking took place in
the aftermath of the competition. The
tavern owner was often the one who
donated the target and subsequent
prize (a turkey, goose, duck, etc.) in
the hopes of luring the men to his
place of business.
In time, when settlers found that the
need for work was not so urgent and
when they had accumulated some
worldly goods, they began to hunt and
fish as a means of recreation. Again
such pasttimes for the pure pleasure
of sport were adopted later in New
England than in other Colonial areas
due to their moral strictures. In
Philadelphia, a fishermens' club was
formed, it was known as the Colony in
Schuylkill.12 This club is now considered the oldest sportsmens' club in
the nation. This change from hunting
and fishing because of necessity to a
recreational sport, showed when an
area was passing through its hard
frontier days and conditions. As the
economic security grew, the colonists
were able to turn to hunting and
fishing for the sole purpose of sport,
because they no longer had to save all
their strength and time for the struggle
to survive. Gradually, the once-needed
work laws became obsolete and faded
into obscurity.
7
As people became established and
began to flourish economically, sports
were able to develop more fully. Horse
racing, for example, became an important part of Southern life and
culture with the increase in wealth and
leisure time. Inter-colonial rivalry also
began to develop at this time. In 1690,
Francis Nicholson, the Governor of
Virginia, established a program by
which annual prizes were to be given
to "those that excel in riding, running,
shooting, wrestling, and fencing."13
This was probably the first organized
sports program in America. By 1720,
Nicholson, then Governor of South
Carolina, began importing stallions to
improve the available breed.
Nicholson's actions reflected the
growing recognition in the colonies of
the pleasure and relaxation that can
be found in sports. Although the acceptance was evident first in the
South, with her wealthy and more
relaxed class of people, New England
would soon discover the benefits that
could be gained from participation in
2Foster Rhea Dulles, America
sports and follow in her footsteps.
Team sports were all but unknown Learns to Play (2 ed.). (New York: Apin Colonial America mainly because pleton Century-Crofts, 1965), p. 4.
Ybid., p. 4.
they did not appeal to the group of in4Sports Illustrated, p. 65.
dividualists who initially populated the
5Robert B. Weaver, Amusements
New World. These settlers came to
America confident in their own ability and Sports in American Life, (Chicago:
both at work and at play. Gradually as University of Chicago Press, 1939), pp.
men gained more leisure time and 1-2.
6Dulles, p. 5.
play became an end in itself apart
'/bid., p. 36.
from a connection to a specific ac8John Durant and Otto Bettman,
complishing or as an escape
mechanism, team sports such as foot- Pictorial History of American Sports,
ball would develop. Through such a (New York: A. C. Barnes & Co., 1965),
team sport, the ancestor of the Col- p. 13.
gJohn Allen Krout, Annals of
onial man would find the individual
sense of satisfaction which was a American Sport, (New Haven: Yale
basic part of his nature as well as the University Press, 1929), p. 23.
1°Durant and Bettman, p. 12.
cooperative spirit once found through
lllbid., p. 10.
participation in barn-raisings and corn
I2Jenny Holliman, American Sports
huskings.
(1 785-1835), (Durham: The Seeman
Press, 1931), p. 62.
13SportsIllustrated, p. 56.
Footnotes
'Sports Illustrated, "America is
Formed for Happiness", Dec. 22 & 29,
1975, p. 55.
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